The End of Being a Student
Our graduation speaker Michelle Rhee, chancellor of the District of Columbia schools is one smart and controversial woman. Fortunately, she got her speech down to a couple of bullet points so the brain dead doctoral students could follow. (We are seriously burned out.)
She found when she took over the DC schools no accountability, and a culture centered around serving the adults in the system, not the kids. And she went after both, upsetting the status quo rather decisively, it would seem.
So, she was pretty strident in her concerns about student achievement, teacher quality, about how adults in the system fail children. She was also pretty blunt about not accepting the excuse that kids are poor, or minority, or otherwise challenged as the explanation for their academic failure. She would say, too bad they didn't have a great breakfast, you still have to teach them math. She challenges the disheartened to get out of the business to make room for the energized.
Surprisingly, she was interrupted by applause from the audience at least 6-7 times. And she was saying some pretty tough stuff. Student scores matter. Adult interests in job situations don't matter. And so on. I would bet that UM is the only Ed School that asked her to speakat graduation. But credit my dean, Deborah Lowenberg Ball. My dean is a very unusual woman. I'll have the privilege of working with her and others at the Ed School school for at least another year as a postdoc.
UMich school of education is really a special place, at least I think so. I came here seven years ago expecting to see another corner of the Edusphere dedicated to maintaining the status quo. What I found here is a vibrant institution where academics push to improve teaching and learning. Our work is slow and painstaking, and doesn't yield the instant solutions I wish it did. But doing research with care and caution, testing and retesting, leads to sound findings rather than fads and trends.
I'll be honest, when I came to Ed School I didn't expect to hear this at a graduation. I was quite enthused by her talk. So were my daughters. So were most in the audience. I am told by sources that the faculty felt challenged and inspired by her talk. But some doctoral students, or graduates by then, complained about her talk as they stood outside the hall after the ceremony. There was some grousing that she was too demanding, or that she failed to understand the nuances of student failure or something. I couldn't eavesdrop well enough to know.
I may post more photos from graduation.
I'm so tired I can't explain.
But I did it.
She found when she took over the DC schools no accountability, and a culture centered around serving the adults in the system, not the kids. And she went after both, upsetting the status quo rather decisively, it would seem.
So, she was pretty strident in her concerns about student achievement, teacher quality, about how adults in the system fail children. She was also pretty blunt about not accepting the excuse that kids are poor, or minority, or otherwise challenged as the explanation for their academic failure. She would say, too bad they didn't have a great breakfast, you still have to teach them math. She challenges the disheartened to get out of the business to make room for the energized.
Surprisingly, she was interrupted by applause from the audience at least 6-7 times. And she was saying some pretty tough stuff. Student scores matter. Adult interests in job situations don't matter. And so on. I would bet that UM is the only Ed School that asked her to speakat graduation. But credit my dean, Deborah Lowenberg Ball. My dean is a very unusual woman. I'll have the privilege of working with her and others at the Ed School school for at least another year as a postdoc.
UMich school of education is really a special place, at least I think so. I came here seven years ago expecting to see another corner of the Edusphere dedicated to maintaining the status quo. What I found here is a vibrant institution where academics push to improve teaching and learning. Our work is slow and painstaking, and doesn't yield the instant solutions I wish it did. But doing research with care and caution, testing and retesting, leads to sound findings rather than fads and trends.
I'll be honest, when I came to Ed School I didn't expect to hear this at a graduation. I was quite enthused by her talk. So were my daughters. So were most in the audience. I am told by sources that the faculty felt challenged and inspired by her talk. But some doctoral students, or graduates by then, complained about her talk as they stood outside the hall after the ceremony. There was some grousing that she was too demanding, or that she failed to understand the nuances of student failure or something. I couldn't eavesdrop well enough to know.
I may post more photos from graduation.
I'm so tired I can't explain.
But I did it.
posted by Jenny D. at 9:32 PM
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